Visibility (38 page)

By the time Herbert got on to the tube, it was already packed with the first phalanxes of grim-faced office
drones, en route to another day of repetitive monotony, another eight hours of their lives gone without excitement, without any reward beyond their salaries; more of their precious allotments ticked off without protest.

He supposed it said something for the average Londoner’s tenacity, or perhaps his lack of imagination, that he was still determined to make it into work in such conditions. The country would hardly fall apart if a day’s filing was missed, after all.

He read the classifieds on the front page of
The Times.

When this was over, he might retreat to a remote bucolic paradise like Kestrel’s.

Back at his flat, he soaked so long in the bath that he had to refill it twice. By the time he got out, his skin was wrinkled like that of a washerwoman. The radio said that the fog would start to clear by mid-morning, and that the temperature would rise from freezing to around forty-five degrees.

He began to reach for the phone to ring New Scotland Yard, to tell them what had happened, and perhaps ask for protection into the bargain. As if in anticipation of his movement, the phone began to ring. He unhooked the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Detective Inspector Smith?”

“Speaking.”

“Rathbone here.”

It took Herbert half a moment to place the name; Rathbone, the pathologist who had conducted Stensness’ autopsy.

“Mr. Rathbone,” Herbert said, remembering that he could not have used Rathbone’s Christian name even if he had wanted to; Rathbone had never volunteered such information. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got some … well, some news, I don’t know whether it’s bad or good …”

“Go on.”

“I’ve just finished the autopsy on Mr. de Vere Green—I know he died yesterday, but we’ve got quite a backlog in this fog, as you can imagine, and suicides aren’t given high priority, yes?” On the slab as at the altar, Herbert thought. “Anyway, we got to him in the end, and … well, to cut a long story short, his suicide, it, er, it wasn’t suicide.”

Herbert was half out of his chair.
“What?”

“Oh, it was carbon monoxide poisoning all right. We found all the usual traces: microscopic hemorrhages in the eyes, congestion and swelling of the brain, liver, spleen, and kidneys, and a distinctive cherry red color to the blood, yes? But the autopsy also revealed chloroform.”

Chloroform. Kazantsev. Elkington. Cholmeley Crescent.

“You’re sure?”

“Oh yes. For a start, I could smell it, very faint, and only when I was right up close to the cadaver, but unmistakable. Then there was blistering on the skin
around the mouth, where the liquid must have come in contact. Also burning inside the mouth, and down in the esophagus, yes?”

“Could he have administered it himself? Trying to knock himself out beforehand?”

Rathbone shrugged. “It’s possible, technically, but unlikely.”

“Why?”

“The degree of burning is consistent with the chloroform being applied with considerable force, which is unlikely when self-administered. And anyway, why would one, er, knock oneself out when the carbon monoxide would have the same effect eventually?”

Herbert’s head reeled.

Not suicide. But with a note and chloroform, not an accident either.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world, he supposed, to open the valve on the gas fire in a small, stuffy room, and leave an unconscious man to take that final, small step into the next world.

What was Herbert sure of?

That the suicide note had been in de Vere Green’s handwriting. And, as much to the point, in his tone, style, and voice, too.

Also, that he had had every motivation to kill himself.

So in order to kill de Vere Green in this manner, and then make it look like suicide, one would have needed two things.

First was the capacity to force him to write the suicide note, which anyone with a knife or gun could have done; and then to knock him out, which meant anybody with a working knowledge of chloroform.

Second was sufficient knowledge of de Vere Green, his history, and his idiosyncrasies to ensure that the note contained no false chords to arouse suspicion.

And that was something very few people could have done. Not Kazantsev, for a start, unless he and de Vere Green had a connection that Herbert knew nothing about.

In fact, Herbert could think of only one person who fitted the bill: Papworth.

A process of elimination was one thing, concrete evidence quite another. If accusing de Vere Green of treason had been serious enough, then leveling a murder charge at a member of the CIA was just as grave. Herbert could not confront Papworth without being absolutely sure. And to be sure, he needed proof.

If he was to find such proof anywhere, he felt, then de Vere Green’s office was as likely a venue as any.

Leconfield House was in what Herbert could only describe as muted uproar; a wildfire of hurried whispers and murmured rumors. The news of de Vere Green’s death had already rippled through the building, though to judge from what Herbert heard as he waited in reception, that news was light on fact—the undisputed truth apart, that de Vere Green was dead—and long on speculation, with murder (a frenzied stabbing) and accident (crushed, agonizingly, beneath the wheels of a slow-moving bus) among the candidates.

Patricia, as ever, came to get Herbert.

“What happened?” she asked. She had not been crying, but her usual jaunty air was somewhat flattened. One did not have to like someone—and Patricia had cared little for de Vere Green—to be shocked that they
were gone. “How did he die?”

It pleased Herbert that she had used the word “die” rather than “pass away” or some other such euphemism. Death was death; why not call it what it was?

He told her, as quickly and as simply as possible. And then he told her about de Vere Green’s relationship with Stensness.

De Vere Green’s office had been locked and sealed. But, with a lack of attention to detail that Herbert found all too typical of Five, there was no one actually standing guard. Perhaps everyone was waiting for someone else to take charge.

“Just stand there,” Herbert said to Patricia. Using her as cover, he picked the lock as easily as he had done in Cholmeley Crescent, and he was in.

He had a perfect right to be here, he reminded himself; as far as he knew, the only people who had any idea that de Vere Green’s “suicide” was anything but were himself and Rathbone.

And the killer, of course.

Herbert went into de Vere Green’s office, shut the door behind him, and began searching through papers on his desk for—well, what exactly?

He did not know.

Anything relevant to the events of the past few days, he supposed; anything he could add to his report.

Rectum defendere
, indeed.

De Vere Green’s papers were the usual hotchpotch of espionage bureaucracy.

Venona decrypts that Herbert had already seen.

Memoranda about expenses and another proposed departmental reorganization.

An envelope marked
Weekend Updates, 6–7th
December 1952.
De Vere Green could not possibly have seen this before he died, so Herbert did not bother opening it.

Herbert was reminded of the way he had rootled through Stensness’ house after Kazantsev had fled. It paid to be thorough.

His search for pertinent information in de Vere Green’s office suddenly seemed much more urgent.

He rummaged through more papers and yet more. Nothing, still nothing, and he had checked everything.

No, he remembered; not quite everything.

He opened the
Weekend Updates
envelope which he had previously ignored, and tipped the contents onto the desk.

Two agents’ reports, one from Birmingham and the other Cardiff, both concerning trade unions; an agenda for a meeting with Six; and three more Venona decrypts. Herbert shook them free and read them.

The first two seemed nothing special: one an exchange of pleasantries between a chargé d’affaires and a second secretary, which may or may not have been code; the other a White House schedule for Truman, consisting of various departmental meetings and a lunch with the Ohio Women’s Association.

The third was about Achilles.

It was not long, but then it did not have to be. It had been sent from Washington on 10th October 1946, and confirmed the assimilation of 174 German scientists into the American industrial and academic network. “Administration unaware” it added; admission that Truman had been left in the dark.

The war had ended in August 1945. De Vere Green had been in Washington for the nine months after-wards;
he had left sometime in the early summer of 1946.

The decrypt was dated October, so Achilles could not have been de Vere Green.

Which meant that Achilles had to be Papworth.

Dear God, Herbert thought.

Achilles was a Soviet agent.

Kazantsev was not working for Papworth; Papworth was working for Kazantsev.

And Papworth received the decrypts, too. This last one had come over the weekend. Papworth had been at the Embassy yesterday. He would have seen it; he would have known that de Vere Green would see it too, first thing on Monday morning.

Find me a single Achilles decrypt which you could categorically not have been involved with
, Papworth had told de Vere Green in the church the previous morning,
and I’ll retract it all.

Had he known, even as he spoke that line, that the proof would be on their desks so soon? Papworth had turned the accusation of espionage back on de Vere Green once; with this proof, he would not have been able to do so again.

So he had killed de Vere Green, before de Vere Green had been able to turn suspicion into evidence.

De Vere Green kept Leconfield House’s internal directory next to his telephone. Herbert found the number for the director-general’s office, and dialed.

No, said the secretary; Sir Percy was not in the building at the moment. No, she couldn’t say where he was.

It was a matter of national security, Herbert said.

Things tended to be in this building, she replied coolly.

He had evidence that a CIA officer was a Soviet spy and had murdered a senior MI5 man. Wouldn’t Sir Percy want to know
that?

She would let Sir Percy know, she said.

If she didn’t tell him where Sir Percy was, Herbert said, he would have her arrested on charges of obstruction of justice.

She was silent, weighing things up; then she said that Sir Percy was at Minimax.

Herbert knew what she meant. Minimax was 54 Broadway, Six’s headquarters just south of St. James’ Park; so-called because, almost thirty years after Six had moved in, the plaque on the door still bore the name of the previous occupants, the Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company.

Herbert had little doubt what—or, more precisely, who—the top brass of Five and Six would be discussing.

He rang Tyce and told him everything that had happened.

“Good Christ, Herbert,” Tyce said when Herbert had finished. “Good Christ.” He took a deep breath. “Right. I’ll put out an APB for Papworth and Kazantsev—all police, all port authorities. Bugger what Five might want, Six too. We waited yesterday, and look where that got us. What are you going to do?”

“Find Papworth.”

“On your own? After being attacked this morning? Not on your life. You wait there. I’ll send a posse of uniforms around, then you can go. No ifs and buts, Herbert, and sod the politics. This is a straight murder hunt now.”

“Fine. Tell them I’ll meet them outside the main entrance.”

Herbert hung up, pocketed the Venona decrypt, walked back through the corridors, and went out through reception into the street. The radio had been correct. There
was
light outside, for the first time in four days. Dull and patchy, for sure, but light nonetheless, and its very presence made Herbert start. The sun was showing rather than shining, hanging sulkily in a dirty sky, and Herbert felt on his face the faintest stirrings of a breeze, blowing the fog down the river.

Visibility was still barely more than a couple of hundred yards, but in comparison to what he had been used to, Herbert felt as if he could see to Manchester.

After a few minutes, a car pulled up to the curb beside Herbert. He looked to see whether it was Tyce’s men.

It was not. It was Papworth and Fischer.

Herbert knew that he should run, or shout, or both; but he had enjoyed precious little sleep, his mind was still trying to process the implications of what he had just learned, and now to see Papworth, the murderer made flesh, was, in his current state, just that last bit too much.

They opened the doors and came for him, one each side, backing him up against a wall—the wall of the headquarters of Britain’s security service, for heaven’s sake, and there was no one watching who could help.

Papworth reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small switchblade. There was just enough sunshine for the metal to glint dully as Papworth placed it against Herbert’s coat, an inch or so beneath his ribs.

“Where is it?” Papworth hissed.

Was this the same man who had come to Hannah’s flat in the small hours and asked him the same question? Herbert could not tell.

“Where’s what?”

It was not an idle question; Herbert genuinely did not know whether Papworth meant the microdots or the Venona decrypt.

“What Stensness was offering,” Papworth said. “Tell me where it is, or I’ll kill you, and I’ll make it slow.”

Funny, Herbert thought, how every person had in them something that one might not see for years, decades even, perhaps never; but when one did, one could never look at that person in the same way again. They were changed, and that could not be undone.

That was how Papworth appeared to Herbert now. The features were Papworth’s, the voice too, but the expression and tones into which they were arranged were something Herbert had never seen on him before. Papworth’s bluff overloud American bonhomie was abruptly gone, wiped clean as if from a restaurant slate.